“Do you love Eric?” Bill said, all of a sudden. His deep brown eyes were fi xed on me with the total attention that had played a large part in attracting me to him when we’d met.

Was everyone I knew fixated on my relationship with the sheriff of Area Five? “Yes,” I said steadily. “I do love him.”

“Does he say he loves you?”

“Yes.” I didn’t look away.

“I wish he would die, some nights,” Bill said.

We were being really honest tonight. “There’s a lot of that going around. There are a couple of people I wouldn’t miss myself,” I admitted. “I think about that when I’m grieving over the people I’ve cared about who’ve passed, like Claudine and Gran and Tray.” And they were just at the top of the list. “So I guess I know how you feel. But I—please don’t wish bad stuff on Eric.” I’d lost about as much as I could stand to lose in the way of important people in my life.

“Who do you want dead, Sookie?” There was a spark of curiosity in his eyes.

“I’m not about to tell you.” I gave him a weak smile. “You might try to make it happen for me. Like you did with Uncle Bartlett.” When I’d discovered Bill had killed my grandmother’s brother, who’d molested me—that’s when I should have cut and run. Wouldn’t my life have been different? But it was too late now.

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“Sure, I have. I thought I was going to die for a couple of hours. I hurt like I’ve never hurt before. And Neave and Lochlan enjoyed it so much. That snapped something inside me. When you and Niall killed them, it was like an answer to the biggest prayer I’d ever prayed. I’m supposed to be a Christian, but most days I don’t feel like I can even presume to say that about myself any longer. I have a lot of mad left over. When I can’t sleep, I think about the other people who didn’t care how much pain and trouble they caused me. And I think about how good I’d feel if they died.”

That I could tell Bill about this awful secret part of me was a measure of how close I’d been to him.